Charter school operators hoping to open in S.A.

Great Hearts Texas President Peter Bezanson, speaking at a public meeting here two weeks ago, says the Arizona-based operator wants to open 10 schools in S.A. within five years.

Photo By Edward A. Ornelas/San Antonio Express-News

Company spokeswoman Patti Tindall and President Peter Bezanson address San Antonians at a recent public meeting at TriPoint.

Photo By Edward A. Ornelas/San Antonio Express-News

Deborah Cowan listens to speakers at a Great Hearts Academies community meeting Monday Sept. 17, 2012 at Tri Point. Cowan planned to send her daughter to a Great Hearts school in Scottsdale, AZ before the family moved to San Antonio about a year ago. Now she's hoping the charter operator gets the green light from the state to open its first Texas school here. Great Hearts Academies, a charter network based in Phoenix, is hoping to open a San Antonio school and is eying locations in Monte Vista, Alamo Heights and North San Antonio.

Photo By Edward A. Ornelas/San Antonio Express-News

Great Hearts Academies communications manager Patti Tindall (left) and Scottsdale Preparatory Academy headmaster Peter Bezanson speak at a community meeting Monday Sept. 17, 2012 at Tri Point. Great Hearts Academies, a charter network based in Phoenix, is hoping to open a San Antonio school and is eying locations in Monte Vista, Alamo Heights and North San Antonio. Scottsdale Preparatory Academy is a Great Hearts Academy.

Photo By Edward A. Ornelas/San Antonio Express-News

Great Hearts Academies communications manager Patti Tindall speaks at a community meeting Monday Sept. 17, 2012 at Tri Point. Great Hearts Academies, a charter network based in Phoenix, is hoping to open a San Antonio school and is eying locations in Monte Vista, Alamo Heights and North San Antonio.

In the video, high school students sat around a table discussing William Shakespeare's “Othello.” Another shot showed a pre-calculus class where kids wore dark blazers and white collared shirts — ties for the boys, plaid skirts for the girls.

It looks like a private school, pointed out Peter Bezanson. But the video shown to about two dozen people at a community meeting held on September 17 showed public school classrooms run by Great Hearts America, an Arizona-based charter school operator that seeks to open its first San Antonio campus next year.

“The difference between us and (private schools) is we have no admissions criteria and we have no tuition price point,” said Bezanson, the operator's chief growth officer and president of Great Hearts Texas. “The reason why we exist in Arizona is that we believe in the mediocrity of the traditional public school system and in the inherent unfairness of the private school system.”

Great Hearts is one of three charter applicants seeking to open schools in San Antonio next year. The others are BASIS, also from Arizona, and the Eleanor Kolitz Academy, a private Jewish day school that wants to reconstitute as a public charter called Ben Yehuda Academy.

“I'm not really dogmatic about charters, I just couldn't find that level of success anywhere else,” foundation trustee Victoria Rico said. The Arizona department of education has bestowed “A” ratings on most of the schools in both the BASIS and Great Hearts networks and two BASIS high schools were named among the nation's top five in rankings by both Newsweek and the Washington Post. Traditionally, charter schools have thrived in urban areas, serving as alternatives for inner-city parents dissatisfied with public schools but unable to afford private ones. These new applicants are different, marketing themselves as college prep academies and attracting whiter, somewhat wealthier clientele.

As public charters, their schools would be open to all comers, but organizers say their programs aren't for everyone.

“The majority of our kids come in at or above grade level,” Bezanson said. “So they're not profoundly gifted, but they're willing to work hard.”

The curriculum at Great Hearts is steeped in the classics, Bezanson said. Elementary students read “A Midsummer Night's Dream.” Middle school students take three years of Latin. High school students are taught with the Socratic method.

That last point appeals to mom Deborah Cowan, who moved to San Antonio from Scottsdale, Ariz., a year ago before her daughter could use the spot she secured in a Great Hearts school there. Cowan said several friends have been pleased with Great Hearts.

“I'm really excited about it.” she said during the meeting. “I hope that it opens next year.”

Ben Yehuda organizers could not be reached for comment, but according to the group's charter application, the school would offer a immersion curriculum in Hebrew. As a charter school, it would become religion — and tuition — free.

A hallmark of BASIS schools is a requirement that high school students pass six college-level Advanced Placement exams in order to graduate. Its alumni frequently have enough credits to start college as sophomores.

Co-Chief Executive Officer Michael Block attributes that to a combination of uncompromising standards and teachers who are subject matter experts.

“If you teach classic literature, you should be a classics major,” said Block, who founded BASIS with his wife in the late 1990s.

Retention rates at the original BASIS schools are now at about 80 percent, Block said, up from 50 percent.

“The biggest one-year drop off is between (grades) 8 and 9 and it's no longer astoundingly high,” he said. “It was at one point.”

But Block said he doesn't think students leave because they can't hack it, noting that the grade point averages of students who leave BASIS schools aren't much different from those who stay.

More likely, Block said some students just don't like the charter's stripped down style, where athletics are “second order” and nothing comes before academics.

“There's a lot of students who want what I refer to as the mythical high school experience,” Block said. “It looks good in movies but it doesn't actually exist.”

Bezanson said Great Hearts' position on athletics is somewhat different.

“We wouldn't open a school if we didn't have competitive athletics programs,” he said, “We love football. We love sports, but we also don't cut kids. Kids would be able to play football with us that would never play football at a big school.”

Earlier this month, Great Hearts ceased an effort to expand into Nashville after the local school board — which approves charters — repeatedly rejected its application. Critics said the proposed location harkened a return to segregation because low-income families wouldn't have easy access to it. Bezanson called the criticism “unfair and unfounded.”

The demographics of Great Hearts schools largely mirror the surrounding areas, Bezanson said. In Arizona, that means schools that were about 71 percent white last year, according to 2011-12 state data.

BASIS schools, many in suburban Arizona, are about 54 percent white and slightly more than 30 percent Asian. Because the Arizona schools don't serve breakfast or lunch, it's unknown how many children would qualify for federal meal subsidies, a poverty indicator.

“We don't have a particular demographic model. And we're also different in that I don't care very much about demographics,” Block said.

Neither BASIS nor Great Hearts have decided on a San Antonio location. Bezanson said he has been eyeing the Monte Vista neighborhood, Olmos Park and Alamo Heights.

“We know we want to put 10 schools in San Antonio — across the city — within the first five years,” Bezanson said.

BASIS doesn't plan to stop at one school, either.

“If we can get a beachhead in Texas, it's a big state with a lot of attractive places to put schools,” Block said.

The Legislature has set a statewide limit of 215 open-enrollment charters, which can include more than one campus. The application process is competitive and the SBOE sometimes rejects them, especially if the board has concerns about the quality of the program, said Debbie Ratcliffe, spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency.

But with 14 openings this year, all the applicants could potentially be approved, she said.